'Shifting goalposts': NSW gives Victoria serve over energy plan block

By Peter Hannam

9 August 2018 — 5:37pm

NSW has accused Victoria of jeopardising the interests of electricity users by making a last-minute call to delay talks on the Turnbull government's National Energy Guarantee until after it is legislated in the Federal Parliament.

Don Harwin, NSW energy minister, rejected a demand on Thursday by his Victorian counterpart Lily D'Ambrosio that the federal government not seek approval from COAG until the policy was law. The ACT said it was open to supporting Victoria.

Victoria's proposal has been criticised as "shifting the goalposts" a day before state and territory ministers are due to sit down in talks with Josh Frydenberg, the federal environment and energy minister, in Sydney. Mr Frydenberg has been pressing the states to agree on the scheme, which is designed to reduce carbon emissions from the electricity sector while also boosting reliability of the grid and lowering power prices.

"The Victorian government is putting their own election campaign before the interests of Victorian electricity consumers," Mr Harwin told Fairfax Media. The Andrews Labor government was "more interested in protecting the seats that are vulnerable to the Greens" than backing a plan that would lower power prices, he said.

Ms D'Ambrosio told Fairfax Media it was time to call out the Turnbull government for pushing states to give first approval for a national plan when the primary responsibility lay with the federal government.

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"The order and the timing [for approving the scheme] was artificial and was created by Josh Frydenberg to serve the purpose of going to an early election," Ms D'Ambrosio told Fairfax Media. "It doesn't have to be in this order."

"The whole thing has been politically designed to draw in the states and make us the proxies for his climate wars," she said. By getting the states on board, the government had planned to force Federal Labor to agree to a poor scheme that could be very difficult for a further government to change.

Mr Frydenberg on Thursday said his government was “not ceding” to Victoria’s demands to alter the policy.

“They are being dictated to by the Greens, they need to stand up for the interests of Victoria and indeed, not prevent a historical national reform," he said.

“If they do they will be guaranteeing Victorians are subject to higher power prices but also the risk of blackouts, and that is not on.”

Victoria's intervention is likely to sink any hopes that Friday's meeting will deliver states' support for an energy plan first made public last October when the Turnbull government failed to secure backbench MP support for an alternative clean energy target.

Shane Rattenbury, the ACT's energy minister, told Fairfax Media this Labor-Greens government "would be" prepared to back Victoria's demand that COAG hold off approval until a legislated plan is on the table.

Mr Rattenbury supported Ms D'Ambrosio's view that the onus on the states and territories had been deliberate: "If we don't approve it, we are the ones blocking progress" is the way "we've been politically positioned over the last six months".

Don Harwin, NSW's energy minister, has called on Victoria to join his state in backing the national energy plan.

Photo: Janie Barrett

Mr Harwin said the Berejiklian cabinet had formally endorsed NSW's backing of the scheme as proposed by the Turnbull government on Thursday morning.

"The NSW government believes we need certainty for investors as soon as possible," Mr Harwin said. "There's no shortage of people who want invest in [power] generation. They just need to be clear about the rules of the game."

Ms D'Ambrosio also criticised the public role of the Energy Security Board chief Kerry Schott, who spoke out on Wednesday calling for states to support the policy or face the prospect of lower reliability of the grid.

“The Energy Security Board’s job is to implement the decisions of the COAG energy council," she said. "There is still plenty of time to get this right and they should know better than to be a mouthpiece for the Turnbull-Abbott government.”

Fairfax Media also sought comment from the board.

The federal push for the states to sign the Turnbull government's signature energy plan came as a top advisor conceded official forecasts show electricity supplies will remain adequate despite the government warnings that without it there was a risk of widespread blackouts.

Kerry Schott, chair of the Energy Security Board that drafted the policy on behalf of the government, on Thursday said the energy ministers should grant their approval.

“Otherwise [the policy] probably cannot be done because of parliamentary and election timetables – and the implementation is needed before the middle of 2019,” she said.

However a report by the Australian Energy Market Commission in April found that the current reliability standards were “achieving their purpose” and were likely to do so until at least 2024.

Dr Schott told Fairfax Media that “at the moment it’s true, there is no forecast reliability gap on an ongoing basis”.